First Date
by qichis
Summary: Everyone knows Francis; he's pretty, he's foreign, he's in two clubs and vice-president of their grade, and Ivan has been sneaking looks at him in the hallways maybe since the second week of their first year. Francis asking him out is the complete opposite of anything that should happen. high school AU


Ivan has the hem of his sweater between his fingers. It's deep blue, the winter uniform of his school, and fraying at the very bottom; Ivan thumbs distractedly at a loose string. He will ask his older sister if she can fix it soon, but right now the string is calming him, helping him keep his thoughts steady —

Francis reaches for his hand and wraps his own around it, effectively stilling Ivan's. He lets go of the string. "Well?"

"Ah…"

He's just a little bit overwhelmed! He doesn't see how this could be anything other than a joke in bad taste, but Francis's expression _seems_ uncertain enough; he's… actually waiting on a response, then, but Ivan's palms are all clammy with sweat and he can feel his heartbeat in his ears, which is maybe entirely the wrong reaction to something he has wanted for such a very long time.

See — see, Ivan's not much of _anyone_. It's his third year here now, and he's gotten used to that. When he first started out as a freshman the sports teams saw his height and so he was briefly popular among a particular group of _very_ loud boys, but they'd all gradually filtered away as their seasons started, and forgot about Ivan. Thankfully. The only 'reputation' he had anymore was among people who did their schoolwork in the library during lunch, because he was often scuttling around helping to rearrange books. And even then they only knew him because they wanted to check books out!

Francis is… popular. Everyone knows him, he's pretty, he's foreign, he's in two clubs and vice-president of their grade, and Ivan has been sneaking looks at him in the hallways maybe since the second week of their first year.

Francis asking him out is the complete opposite of anything that should happen.

—-

He enjoys the little crowd of people that find him at lunch, he_ does_, but sometimes Francis wants to sit alone somewhere quiet — somewhere, perhaps, like the library — and simply mind his own business._Without_ others minding it as well.

Francis has learned that this is impossible.

There are a hundred, a _thousand_ demands on his time every moment of every day, from the art club and the literature club to the student government to the strange faces who always pop into his line of sight while he's walking through the halls to ask him ridiculous things. To sit with them, to say their names in his accent. It is _exhausting_, and it wears him out!

There is a boy who works in the library (not for pay, he thinks; as far as he knows the school doesn't do that, but perhaps he logs volunteer hours — Francis had ought to do more of those himself if he wants to get into the schools to which he is applying — but he's letting his thoughts get off-track, here).

_There is a boy who works in the library_, and he always seems to have a strained, worried expression on his face, as if he thinks someone is constantly over his shoulder. When he rearranges books, however, or checks them out for someone, his face seems to smooth into a calm. It makes Francis want to lean over and kiss his chubby little cheeks.

Francis has checked out books more than once solely to think of this fantasy while Ivan is distracted and not looking.

It takes days of thinking, two absentmindedly chewed-down pencil erasers, and a combined fifty-five-dollar bet from Gilbert and Antonio for Francis to build up the courage to find the boy and simply _ask_.

—-

After a little while, he says yes.

They'll go to out to a café to talk about books they like and books they don't like, then to a theater to see a movie, some silly war thing.

They'll end up chatting so animatedly they entirely miss the start of the movie and decide, instead, to walk around town together. At some point Francis takes Ivan's hand, and only lets go of it when they're at Ivan's front door, both pink-cheeked and grinning.

Francis asks Ivan out to a second date.

Ivan says yes to that, too.


End file.
